Telephony services have encountered great success over the past decade based on the provision of voice and data related services delivered over a traditional circuit switched network. The evolution of services within those networks can create a situation where the provision of a new service involves the introduction of a new network element providing only that specific functionality. Hence, associated functional and quality assurance testing associated with a specific service is targeted only at the element providing the functionality. Existing testing typically deals with very specific mechanisms related to the specific function, specific purpose, specific operation, and specific behavior of a specific network element. For example, an existing system may refer specifically to a network element (e.g., interactive voice response (IVR) or detail a method specific to an application. Furthermore, existing systems have provisions only for traditional circuit switched networks and architectures.
As the industry evolves towards next generation networks, network owners will derive benefit from their networks, while opening these networks to third parties to develop and offer enhanced and tailored services and applications of their own. The traditional architecture and methodologies will be affected. Next generation IP Multi-Media Subsystem (IMS) is an IP multimedia and telephony core network that is defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and 3GPP2 standards and organizations based on Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet protocols, which define how communications technologies can work together to deliver new services to enrich communications for end-users. IMS is an access independent, standardized reference architecture that includes session and connection control and an applications services framework along with subscriber and services data. IMS enables new converged voice and data services, while allowing for the interoperability of these converged services between subscribers.
No existing work can deliver a common automation and quality assurance test methodology that will bridge this (and future) technology migrations, while providing full independence from all levels of implementation detail.